When you went to school with a celebrity and they lie about their story

[threeisacharm18]

I was listening to a pop star who was being interviewed and heard them tell some blatant lies about their background.

They claimed to never have gone to drama school or had any industry connections and miraculously was scouted.

I know this to be a complete lie. I was so surprised as to why they would lie this way. It makes no sense. It's been 20 years. No one cares that much so why lie... ?

I guess they were trying to flog something so maybe it the 'struggle story' sells better

I would LOVE to know who this is.

But some people just fictionalise recognisable situations in which they were or were not involved. It’s pretty common. If you are using someone’s experience fictionally, or in a memoir, I’ve seen different writers handle it very differently. Some write and show the MS to the involved person/people, some don’t, and their publishers take legal advice on anything likely to be inflammatory. Of the people who show the MS to people involved, there’s a range of different options I’ve seen. Some writers say ‘I won’t publish at all unless you’re happy’, some offer to discuss changes to conceal identities etc, some just say ‘I’m showing you this so you can see it before other people read it’.

A friend I was talking to yesterday had shown his elderly parents his memoir before publication, but with no offers not to publish. His mother made one request, to conceal the fact that her own parents had separated and lived separately lives for much of their 40- year marriage. He did. Another friend who wrote a travel memoir about living overseas with her family didn’t include her husband at his request, so it looks as if she was a single parent. I think everyone uses their experiences, but approach how that encroaches on others in very different ways.

@infor Brian Johnson?

I hear what you are saying. But this book is an important work. It is on English Lit syllabuses. It has a huge following. It won awards. People write essays about it. And it is presented as a piece of fiction when I know it isn't. You know how people find the private lives of artists an important part of understanding their work? Well, that's where I'm coming from. People don't know this particular scenario happened to her and I think it changes a lot, perception wise, if you know. All her other work is biography/autobiography - apart from this one. She has cultivated a particular image which I think would be massively altered if people know this actually happened. But I am not going to out her so I will say no more!!

I wonder if that's what Sally Thomsett did - getting in there early and taking advantage of her very young looks - playing 11yo Phyllis in The Railway Children when she was 20?!

Yes this happened in my family as well. I think it was my grandfather who apparently never knew his sister was actually his mum, which was hilarious as the whole village knew and just kept up the pretence to be polite 😂. I'm sure there were horrible situations where people were covering abuse but I like to think many families who did this were simply being kind offering an alternative to a mother and baby home or incarceration in an asylum (which many women never got out of and lived their whole lives in them). In this case the sister/mother was working on service in a big house when she fell pg so it really could have been a number of scenarios some far worse than others..

Not a celebrity but someone I know went to Oxford Polytechnic but claims to have a degree from Oxford University. He’s in a profession where transparency is very important.

I overheard a girl on a train saying she was only waiting to hear from Oxford Brookes for her UCAS application. She told her friend it was part of Oxford University and they would share classes with OU. My DD has just had an offer from OB so i knew she was talking rubbish.

I also came across an obituary from someone i went to school with, She died in her 50s from concequences of annorxia from when she was at school. She became a professor and obviously very successful in her field, but her obituary said she lived and went to school, no where near where we went to school. I recognised her from her photo as well as her name.

I think that's quite a common claim, we once knew someone who had been to Oxford Poly that morphed into 'I loved my university time at Oxford' when she had a terrible book published years later!

Well, most jobs that require specific qualifications will ask for evidence that you have the degrees you claim to have at the application stage, so presumably he told the truth then? I’ve had to provide a degree certificate and/or transcript for every job I’ve ever had,

I went to OB and head off confusion early as even the impression of misleading people has to be avoided.
My standard lines is "There are two Universities in Oxford, I went to the other one"

I’m guessing it’s that woman who made that false accusation on big brother? Forgot her name. Think she was in Emmerdale?

celebrities will lie about the most basic information-like how old they are and where they were brought up and what their parents did-lying about being not being scouted is very minor by comparison.

Kerry Katona comes to mind?

lol. I went to Uni with someone who is now vaguely famous. He claims to have done a degree at the Uni that he didn't do and doesn't exist (I know because I did the same degree as him LOL). Presumably to boost his credentials in the field he is now 'famous' in). It's a minor thing, really but why lie?

Well next time name change before coming on to a thread a vaguebooking

Yeah but using the info to present themselves as having “struggled” when it’s not true is pretty disgusting. I hated when Colman said that bit about being a cleaner. She implied she’d dragged herself up from scrubbing toilets on talent alone, and in fact had come from vast privilege. Boarding school to Cambridge and the very, very successful network that gave her access to, that basically runs the entire theatre/film/tv industry. A little cleaning job for pocket money after Cambridge while waiting for her inevitable privately educated fortunes to rise just doesn’t sound as good. And it’s unnecessary because literally everyone adores her for her work.

as a side note, I know an absolutely NOT posh, very working class and utterly extraordinary actor who did a film with her and she constantly told him he had a chip on his shoulder about class. She was wildly defensive about her privilege, though HE never once mentioned it. Posh people are obsessed with the idea that the rest of us are “posh-bashing” them simply because they’re well aware that meritocracy didn’t get them where they are.

I would have thought this. But apparently quite a significant percentage of people don’t really care when they discover its not really true. Instead they make up explanations why its probably not a “lie” but something more relatable. I have to admit I was one of these people, although I am not entirely sure why.

Here’s a similar story:
Someone I know, not celeb, always claims to be “half Scottish half French” when they introducer themselves. They do an imperfect but ok-ish impression of the Scottish accent mixed with lots of French influence, and the occasional grammar mistake.

For the longest time we had assumed that half Scottish half French means: one parent Scottish, the other French. Easy.

After several errors that a native speaker wouldn’t do I asked which parent is Scottish. After many questions and a long conversation I learned that both parents are French. And the person grew up in France. Had some trips (with very fond memories) to Scotland, so feels emotionally close, but has no blood-relatives who are actually Scottish, only some close family friends.

So the explanation for “half Scottish” then was, “I don’t want to say the whole story but I want to express that I feel connected to the country”. So much so tgat they are no longer using their French first name but made up a more Scottish sounding one and asks everyone to call them by that name.

I have to admit, for quite a long time, though I did know that I had originally not been told the truth I didn’t mind too much. Because it “made sense”, I guess but I can’t really explain why.
Only quite a bit later when on one occasion I found out that thiey don’t even have British citizenship, did I start thinking that this whole Scottish story is quite odd and what else is not true about them…

Most people just happily call them by the Scottish name even if they know it’s made up. I find it all very confusing how accepting I was of the fact that I (and many others) “misunderstood” how they meant “half”, even though making up a persona with a whole different nationality is really odd.

I love the several years younger than me...

Oh god it’s not Notes on a Scandal is it?

That’s venturing into “Hilaria” Baldwin territory.

Went to school with someone who is now a fairly well known fitness influencer, preaches about being kind to others etc and how she knows the importance of this because she was bullied and had to change schools. Reality is she was an absolutely relentless bully and bullied so many kids they eventually had enough, banded together and turned on her. She quickly became socially isolated as no one wanted to be her friend anymore - she left the school shortly after. I totally get people mature and change, but to say you were bullied when actually you were going after kids daily just irks me!

I immediately thought Abbie Clancey as she and Peter Crouch make a few appearances together in magazines/podcasts etc

I think it does come back to bite them on the bum,as in the film star Alec Baldwins wife who had pretended to be spanish and her name was hilaria, when in reality her name was hilary and loads of her friends from school in boston massetuch...oh forget that mularkey i can't spell it...decided to let people know the truth.

Oh that was my exact first thought!! But it was mentioned that this author mainly writes biographies and that isn't true of L Shriver (at least I hope to god WNTTAK isn't factual 😬😅).

Also, am amused at the posters dropping by on the 18th page to guess Roxanne Pallet as if they must be the first person to work it out!